It is a widespread and common practice to provide party guests with an array of hot and cold food served buffet style. Hot food is typically served from a covered slow cooker or a covered thermally wrapped pot to keep the food warm over the course of the event. This means that guests must remove the cover in order to obtain a serving of the food retained therein. As most of us have experienced, this poses a problem as each guest desiring a serving of hot food finds themselves holding a plate in one hand and a hot cover in the other hand, leaving them with no way to dish up the now accessible food. Unless another guest is immediately available to help, the guest is forced to temporarily abandon the cover in order to provide a free hand for serving the food. The problems associated with this practice are legion, ranging from the dripping of condensate from the abandoned cover onto the surface supporting the abandoned cover and the smearing of food from the abandoned cover onto on the supporting surface, to burning of fingers and dropping of the cover into the food or onto the floor.
Covered cooking vessels and the issue of dealing with the cover during cooking and serving have been around for centuries. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,349,084 issued in 1920 discloses a holder for temporarily restraining a kettle-cover between two horizontally spaced loops of wire extending vertically from a common base. While effective for holding the cover, the device is bulky and does not prevent dripping of condensate or food onto the supporting surface.
Numerous other attempts have been made to solve the aforementioned problems. Exemplary efforts are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,790,503, 5,127,616, 5,396,993, 5,683,010 and 7,284,733, U.S. Design Pat. D301,105 and D320,332, and U.S. Patent Application Publications 20090230134, and 20100193523.
While generally effective for providing a place to temporarily stow the cover of a heated cooking vessel, a continued need exists for an inexpensive and universally applicable device capable of temporarily stowing a wide range of covers used with a wide range of cooking vessels such that the stowed cover does not substantially obstruct access to food within the cooking vessel yet ensures that any food and/or condensate on the cover drips back into the cooking vessel.